


it feels like we only go backwards

by quentintarrantino



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-18
Updated: 2017-10-18
Packaged: 2019-01-18 23:26:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12398427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quentintarrantino/pseuds/quentintarrantino
Summary: You can't love him.He tells her sadly when the frost starts to kill the trees around them.





	it feels like we only go backwards

i.

Sansa has long since been disillusioned by the morality of man. All the gods in the world watching sternly from their perches couldn't stop them from doing what they wanted. No threat of eternal punishment would prevent one lordling from bashing in the skull of another or a king from taking yet another whore into his bed. She has sinking suspicions that these virtues were created for those considered lesser by those who sat on their thrones. 

Sin is a word she's heard so much it's beginning to lose it's meaning.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ii.

It bothers her less and less when she overhears the servant girls whisper to themselves in the halls. Words like _lover_. Words like _sin_.

It bothers him more and more.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

iii.

Strange that the only man she'll have is so often on the opposite side of the questions she asks herself at night. His rough hands sweep her skin by night when there's none to look upon them and in the daylight their eyes seldom meet.

For a man overflowing with honor and duty he proves himself just another lordling who picks and chooses what laws he'll live by. If she was smarter she'd be disappointed in him.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

iv.

Jon tells her every night he never meant it to be like this, when it's just the two of them huddled together in what once might've been their father's chambers.

Sansa tries her best not to think about what once was, it's dangerously close to thinking about what could have been.

She's fallen into that pit before, Jon doesn't seem to know any better because his eyes always seem so solemn when they skirt the wide expanse of the past.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

v.

The sun doesn't rise for hours and they fill the time by talking about everything. Hopes, dreams, silly childish wishes. He wanted to be a dragon knight once, just as she had wanted to be a queen.

Jon tells her in the moments between their heartbeats that she could still be queen if she wanted.

Sansa doesn't dare to tread that path, such an idea is too sweet to risk savoring lest she become attached. Happiness is a condition foreign to the pair of them, and she's not fool enough to think that their stories have anything but tragic ends. The wars of their forebearers are closing in tighter around them and each morning when the sun rises feels like they're getting closer to the end of the line.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

vi.

When she stands on the battlements she's always very careful not to turn around and look out past the safety of her home. Sometimes she's scared she'll see Rickon's corpse standing in the tall grass looking back at her.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

vii.

He cries more often than he'd like her to know.

The night before they fall into bed together she finds him in the crypts, staring hollowly at the statues of their father and his siblings with tears threatening to spill over.

It's strange to think there was a time before this where all they'd ever known was summer. When the torch burns low he holds her hand, she acts like she doesn't notice how his fingers tremble.

In the dark the queen of love and beauty watches over them mournfully, a stone wreath of winter roses heavy on her brow.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

viii.

_Have there been others?_ Sansa asks him as they lay tangled, naked and lost in their own thoughts.

_One._ He replies, forever winding and unwinding his fingers around her hair. _She had hair like yours._ She knows it's childish to feel disappointed by his answer, but she had fostered a secret wish that maybe he could be hers in his entirety.

Jon shifts beside her, lips trailing over her neck. Over her collarbone. Over her chest. _Kissed by fire._ He mumbles. The palms of her hands can feel the angry raised scrapes and scars from where he died alone in the snow.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ix.

Bran watches them with sullen but all-knowing eyes.

  
He spends his days in the godswood under the shelter of the heart tree. Sometimes when she can spare a few hours she'll slip away to join him. Side by side they stare off at nothing, shoulders touching amicably.

_You can't love him._ He tells her sadly when the frost starts to kill the trees around them.

Sansa thinks about her mother and father, dying kingdoms apart, alone and afraid. She thinks about the raven that arrived this morning declaring Daenerys Targaryen the rightful Queen of the Andals and the First Men.

She won't cry for Jon Snow, she tells herself.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

x.

He kisses her goodbye before he leaves for his ship. This changes nothing.

He's said it so many times that maybe even he believes it. When Jon is afraid he forgets himself.

The dragon queen wants to treat with the bastard king in the north. This changes nothing.

  
The dead are at the Wall, chipping away at it impatiently. This changes nothing.

  
Words are wind, she tells the empty side of the bed that might've been his in another life.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

xi.

Arya comes riding home the day even the heart tree loses its leaves.

Sansa's ravens have not been returned in months.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

xii.

In small words she asks him what it feels like to die. With deliberate movements he gathers her into his arms, a hum low in his throat.

Sansa knows the end is closer than it has ever been, she half expected time to slow down in anticipation but the arrival of winter means that the days are even shorter. Each minute feels borrowed, she digs her fingernails into Jon's arm.

She repeats the question that he won't answer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

xiii.

He told her once that an old man at the end of the world said love is the death of duty. They were both new to pretending then and it was harder to ignore the way he stared at her. Their touches had yet to linger and her back was still bent under the weight of the marriage cloaks she'd been forced to shoulder.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

xiv.

When he returns it's with an army and a silver-haired bride.

His eyes are black as pitch and deeper than the pool in the godswood that's now frozen solid. Sansa doesn't meet his gaze because she knows if she does she'll drown and she will not cry for Jon Snow.


End file.
